Natalia stepped from the carriage, only to have her feet sink into the mud. She glanced down at the thick brown muck as it covered her toes, then lifted her foot, flinging the mud loose as best she could. In answer, her shoe, which admittedly was ill-suited to this type of terrain, flew across the intervening distance, to land in a puddle that lay more than an arm"s length away.
She sighed in resignation. The trip from Karslev had been long and tedious, with constant changing of carriages to avoid being followed. Now, weeks later and hundreds of miles from her start, she finally felt a modicum of safety, only to be met with a torrential rainstorm that had flooded the roads.
Pondering her situation for but a moment, she decided there was little she could do but stand, and so she put her b
